[72]. There is one argument in defence of Old Age, in Cicero, which is so exquisitely put, that nothing can surpass it: it is a perfect bon bouche for a metaphysician. It is where some one objects to old age, that the old man, whatever comforts he may enjoy, cannot hope to live long, which the young man at least expects to do. To which is answered: So much the better; the one has already done what the other only hopes to do: the old man has already lived long: the young man only hopes that he may. A man would be happy a whole day after having such a thought as this.
[73]. Mr. Tooke has fallen into the same mistake with which he reproaches preceding writers, that of supposing the different sorts of words to be the measure of the different sorts of things. He has only reversed their inference: for as the old grammarians, who admitted more different sorts of words, contended for more differences of things, so Mr. Tooke, who admits of fewer sorts of words, argues that there can be only as many different ideas or things, as are expressed by the different parts of speech. Thus, if substantives and adjectives do not represent substance and quality, there can be no such difference in nature, or in the human understanding. This we conceive to be a piece of as false philosophy, as if we were to affirm that there can be no difference between blue or yellow, because they are both adjectives, or between light and sound, because they are both substantives. Mr. Tooke’s whole object is to show that the different parts of speech do not relate to the differences in ideas or things, and yet he would make the difference in the one, the test of the difference in the other. As to all that he has said of abstraction, and the real or physical meaning of words, we believe that we do not understand him; for, as far as we do, his facts and cases seem to us to prove the very reverse of his conclusions. So he has brought 2000 instances of the meaning of words to demonstrate that we have no abstract ideas, not one of which 2000 meanings is any thing else but an abstract idea. Logic and metaphysics are the weak sides of his reasoning. But he has rendered essential services to grammar, which cannot be overlooked or forgotten.
[74]. ‘A fellow of no mark nor likelihood,’ Henry IV., Part I., Act III. Scene 2.
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
- Silently corrected typographical errors and variations in spelling.
- Archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings retained as printed.
- Footnotes have been re-indexed using numbers and collected together at the end of the last chapter.